Work group research: past strategies and future opportunities

Standard methodologies for investigating work groups are compared. Supplementary, complementary, and hybrid research strategies are identified and tradeoffs discussed. The need for conducting externally valid work group experiments is emphasized. Methodological shortcomings in previous work group experiments are cited and translated into experimental design guidelines which incorporate: (1) realistic tasks; (2) subject cohorts that are knowledgeable about and interested in the experimental task; and (3) the organizational context provided by academic institutions. Together, these design guidelines constitute a previously uncharacterized experimental methodology that increases external validity, labeled the “opportunistic experiment”. Group projects undertaken by engineering students are identified as an ideal and untapped source for engineering management (and other) researchers to utilize in their investigations of work groups